Mask-An Attack on Titan Fan Fiction

Chapter Sixteen

As we stood there in shock, watching Mikasa's hysterics, pain began lacing its way back into my consciousness.

Oh, yeah. My ankles.

In one second, the pain roared back to life, and I was forced to my knees, teeth gritted. Jean turned to me.

"You alright, mate?"

"I'm fine, Horse-Face."

Jean glared at me skeptically. "You don't look fine."

"I'm fi-"

The pain screamed again, and I clenched my fists until my nails sank into my palms.

Jean hefted me to my feet. Reiner noticed and they both lead me away.

"Guys, come on," I moaned, "It's fine. I'm not in any pain."

I winced as I said this.

"Shut up, Larsson," Reiner said, "You're clearly in need of professional medical attention."

"Darn it, Reiner," I said.

Chaos met us the minute we were inside. Kitz Weilman was hoarsely screaming to his soldiers, ordering them outside to arrest the monster, and to stay calm. The irony was hysterical.

Kitz was anything but calm. His eyes were crazed with terror, and his voice was constantly breaking.

"The monster?" I said, "Does he mean Eren?"

"Don't worry about that right now," Reiner said, hefting me into a lift.

We ascended slowly, and the constant jostling caused me to black out before we had even reached the infirmary.

I was in an alleyway, fingers interlaced in my dark hair. The windows of the buildings on either side of me cast a golden glow on the pavement. I pressed against the walls, cringing against the light. The darkness seemed more welcome.

I slid one hand down to the blade by my feet. The more I thought about it, the more logical it seemed. No one needed me. I was just trouble for everyone.

It felt like I was drowning. Suffocating weight squeezed around me, pressing in, tighter and tighter. My breath was coming in pained gasps, and the sound of my exhales seemed distant, as if they came from someone else.  

The blade whispered to me.

'Dad said it himself,' I said, 'I shouldn't have been born. I'm nothing.'

My fingers wrapped around the blade. My mind was a whirlpool of disjointed thoughts. The knife traveled up to the place where I needed it. Fragments of my life stabbed me.

The cold blade stung my neck. My hands were shaking.

I had expected to cry when I met death. However, the suffocating pressure twisting around me seemed to have evaporated any moisture that might have been there. I felt like a vast wasteland, numb and void.

The blade pressed deeper, and I gasped at the bite of metal.

I looked up at the stars glinting above me. Their serene twinkles seemed to be mocking me, laughing at the girl in an alley who felt that there was nothing left.

Deeper pressed the blade.

I felt something beginning to seep down my neck. Pain was lacing itself from the wound to the rest of my body.

The knife suddenly dropped to the ground. My blood scarred the blade.

Shaking hands pressed against the wound, my brain only numbly registering the pain. Blood was seeping into my shirt, a dark bloom of mockery, screaming my cowardice.